Check a carrier before you tender the load.
Operating status, fleet size, roadside inspections and every out-of-service violation. Search by DOT number or company name.
What you get
Every US motor carrier files with the FMCSA, and every roadside inspection it receives is recorded against its DOT number. That record is public, and it's the difference between a carrier that looks fine on paper and one that gets pulled off the road.
- Whether the carrier is currently active
- How many inspections it has been through, and how many were clean
- How often an inspection ended with a vehicle or driver ordered out of service
- The specific violations, by federal regulation code
Why name search only finds some carriers
Searching by name looks through carriers that have actually been inspected, not the full registration list. The registration file holds 4.5 million records and most of them describe no operating business: searching one large carrier's name there returns nine entries, four of them identical inactive shells with no inspections at all.
Ranking by inspection count fixes that, because a carrier can report whatever fleet size it likes on a form but can't manufacture roadside stops. If a carrier has no inspections it won't appear by name, which is itself worth knowing. Its DOT number still works.
What this isn't
It isn't an official safety rating. FMCSA issues Satisfactory, Conditional and Unsatisfactory ratings through a separate compliance review, and most carriers have never been rated. What's here is the inspection record, described as the inspection record. It also doesn't show insurance or operating authority, both of which you should check with FMCSA directly before tendering.